


They're never gonna give you love like ours

by MagusLibera



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s01e18 All Star Team Up, Episode: s03e18 Public Enemy, Eventual Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak, F/M, Idiots in Love, Jealous Oliver Queen, Lonely Oliver Queen, Minor Ray Palmer/Felicity Smoak, POV Felicity Smoak, Season/Series 03, because canon, but here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:27:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25265341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagusLibera/pseuds/MagusLibera
Summary: Barry is in town shortly after Felicity and Ray's visit to Central City to help them out with a project for Palmer Tech. Oliver gets a little upset that all of Felicity's time is being taken up by her boyfriend and speedster friend.
Relationships: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Comments: 30
Kudos: 84
Collections: Fic or Dare Quarantine Game





	They're never gonna give you love like ours

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inlovewithimpossibility](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithimpossibility/gifts), [Oliverslicity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oliverslicity/gifts).



> ...I lost the bet and then Mandy and Cerys said I had to BE NICE TO BARRY ALLEN in this fic and I still haven't forgiven them. But I wrote this and I think I just about managed to be gracious to Flash S1 Barry so here we are.
> 
> This is set just after Ray and Felicity return from Central City after Flash 118 which is apparently just between Arrow 318 and 319, so Oliver can't be the Arrow as Roy has just been arrested.
> 
> I'm doing NaNoWriMo right now, so me posting stuff is gonna be more sporadic and likely mostly driven by losing bets.
> 
> Title from ilomilo by Billie Eilish.

Ray’s excitement is infectious as he and Felicity wait up in his Palmer Tech lab for Barry’s arrival. Since they left Central City a few days ago, Ray’s new ideas for his suit in hand, all that her boyfriend has talked about has been Team Flash. He cannot stop rambling about Cisco’s genius mind and Barry’s speed and how much fun it would be to team up with them again.

More than once Felicity has found herself getting a little defensive over her own team, but she knows that Ray’s excitement is all good natured. She understands that Team Flash holds a lot more appeal to him as he has far more in common with the guys at S.T.A.R. Labs than a group of men who punch first, ask questions later. A little team pride on her part is unstoppable though.

So it did not surprise her when, less than two days after they returned home, he came to her begging for them to invite Barry over to help out on a project. She had tried to explain to Ray that Barry is busy with his own life, especially with everything he has been discovering about Wells, but when he started to pout, she gave in and called the speedster on Ray’s behalf. It had been more of a surprise when Barry enthusiastically agreed to drop everything and race over, but Felicity gets the feeling that he is desperate to get away from the chaos of his own life for a bit. She cannot blame him, suspecting that his main mentor since he woke up with powers is also his most bitter enemy and the man who murdered his mother and framed his father must be difficult. Much like how it must have felt for Oliver when Slade turned against him all those years ago after the two of them had been as close as brothers.

It is nice to actually spend time with her friend in the Palmer Techs lab. For once, there are no life threatening emergencies, no super suits, no crazy bee ladies out to get them. It is just Felicity, her boyfriend and her friend in their natural habitat, theorising about the best ways to make the science work. And they have a rule about not talking about their current predicaments in their crime fighting lives so that they can keep it that way.

Ray is over the moon the entire time. As he gets Barry to do the complex chemistry that he has invited the speedster over to do, he peppers the younger man with questions about the physics of his powers. Barry seems to enjoy the questions, and speaks animatedly about what it is like to run faster than sound and how Cisco’s friction-proof suit keeps him from catching fire every day.

Felicity, for the most part, is content to sit back and watch the boys work, her own input in the project being minimal as it is mainly chemistry based, but she occasionally chimes in with an anecdote. She tells Ray about the first time that she had watched Barry run, and how he had taken a photo of her from a nearby building. She giggles when she recounts the time last December when Barry had carried her to S.T.A.R. Labs and her shirt caught fire, leaving her stood in only her bra in front of all of Team Flash.

Her stories make Ray laugh, which makes her happy. She truly does want him to be happy. He is her boyfriend and she does care about him a lot, but sometimes she wonders if she perhaps likes Ray more platonically than romantically. Sometimes, she gets the feeling that she had only allowed her relationship with him to develop because she was feeling rejected by Oliver and Ray’s kindness and devoted interest in her had been right there and easy and a pleasant change from the last few years spent pining over her vigilante partner.

*************************

Since Ray’s confession of love, she has been thinking about it all a lot more than ever before. Because her mother is right, she cannot tell him that she loves him back because she does not love him the way that he loves her. She does love him, but she is not _in love_ with him. Which should probably have been her first clue that what she feels for him is more platonic than anything else. But regardless of the nature of her feelings for Ray, despite what she had said to Oliver a few months ago when he returned from the ‘dead’, she is still very much in love with the archer.

It makes her feel guilty, every time Ray smiles at her, every time he takes her out for a date and he looks at her as adoringly as he does. He is a good man, and on paper he is perfect for her, but as much as she wishes that things were different, he is not the man she wants to be with. Part of her knows that she has to tell him that, she needs to stop stringing him along. But it is hard, when he looks at her the way that he does. She does not want to break his heart.

So seeing him happy and enjoying himself with her friend is a big relief and it takes her mind away from the complicated mess that is her love life. Well, it does just as long as she ignores the fact that she and Barry had almost been a thing and that she has actually kissed every other person in the lab.

As if feeling guilty about her lacklustre feelings for Ray is not enough, she is also feeling guilty about Oliver. When she had told him that she would be coming into the Palmer Tech basement (where Ray has been kind enough to set up Team Arrow since the Foundry’s discovery by the SCPD) late for a few nights thanks to the project, he had looked like a kicked puppy. And when she told him that the project was one that she would be working on with Ray and Barry, he actually had the gall to look at her like she was the one who just shot an arrow into his heart.

It makes her mad, the way that he constantly acts like she has broken his heart by dating Ray and daring to have friends who are not he and Digg and Roy. Like she does not have to watch him wrestling on the floor with his ex-girlfriend every other night. Like she has not spent the last couple of years sat back, quietly watching him date other women and watching him sabotage his own relationships over and over again. Like he was not the one who chose his lifestyle over her, as if the two were mutually exclusive.

But right now, she is finding it too hard to stay mad at him. The boiling fury she had felt when she told him she did not want to be a woman he loved has abated somewhat, and now she recognises that Oliver is just doing what he thinks is best to keep Thea and her and the city safe, even if she does not agree with his methods. She knows that he detests working with Merlyn almost as much as she does, but he does it for the people he loves and she can almost understand that, so her anger has lessened and the all-encompassing love that she has for him is surging right up again to replace the anger.

It has been especially hard to get mad with him in the last few weeks, since Lance’s betrayal and attempted arrest. He has been nearly out of his mind with Roy in prison, and is still in hiding just in case Lance gets any funny ideas. The Arrow has not even been able to go out, he can only go after criminals if he is extremely careful and does not take his bow, so Oliver’s usual outlet for his frustrations has been gone.

And now Felicity has left him down there in the basement so that she can play chemist with her boyfriend and Barry. On top of that, the night before Barry’s arrival, she had not reported for her Arrow duties at all, thanks to a date night with Ray. And before that, she had not been around for several days thanks to the visit to Central City. Oliver feels like he has had everything stripped away from him, and now she is not even there to offer him the friendship that he still has from her. She has also introduced Barry and Ray to one another, so she knows that he must be feeling like Ray has taken that vigilante connection from him too.

************************

On Barry’s last night in town, he suggests that the three of them go out together to celebrate finishing their project. He looks excited to see Starling’s night life, not having had much of a chance the previous two times he has been in the city, and Felicity finds herself agreeing when the two scientists turn their begging eyes on her. When she tells Oliver that she is not just going to be late that night, but that she is not going to be in at all, he barely even reacts. His back is to her, but she can see how his shoulders drop in defeat, she can hear the dejection in his voice as he just says, “Okay.” And then resumes pummelling a tyre with a hammer but with twice the ferocity.

Felicity feels a little guilty about not inviting him, but she knows that he cannot risk going out and getting caught. And she does not exactly fancy spending the evening with a guy she had a minor crush on and kissed once, the man she is in love with and shared the best kiss of her life with, and also her current boyfriend, for whom she cares dearly.

Still, every time that the hammer connects with the rubber, Felicity flinches.

*************************

She, Barry and Ray have a great time. She shows them around all of her favourite party spots in the city, not that she has ever spent much time in any of them. But Barry loves every second of the night. He and Ray gets a little too drunk (Felicity keeps her drinking to a minimal when she sees that Barry has brought along a large bottle of his Cisco-provided super-alcohol so that he can join in with their enjoyment of the night. He has to keep taking sips at regular intervals, but he manages to keep up his buzz all night). Drunk, they are adorable together. The two of them stand there, whatever semblance of a filter they had gone, and rapidly start brainstorming ideas for how they could modify both of their super suits, how they could use Barry as an energy source, how they could change the world.

At one point, Barry gets so excited that he starts to speed-speak, his mouth running as fast as his mind is going and the words coming out as a garbled blur to the slow ears of Ray and Felicity. Because Ray is drunk, he starts to giggle at the sound, which even Felicity has to admit is funny. Ray’s giggles get her giggling too and Barry looks at them with a hurt expression, not understanding why they are laughing at his ideas until Felicity explains it to him.

It is going great, really great, right up until Barry suggests that they head to Verdant. Verdant: the best club in the Glades. Verdant: the club run by Thea Queen. Verdant: the club that hides the Arrow lair. Verdant: the club under which the love of Felicity’s life set up his mission and his life. Where he was honest to her for the first time and where he brought her after their failed date. Where he was living until Thea offered him a place in her loft. That Verdant.

Before Felicity can protest, Ray is enthusiastically agreeing, dragging Barry up as he pays for the three of them and then turning to Felicity to let her know that they can leave. Felicity’s mind goes blank – perhaps for the first time in her entire life – and she just gapes at the other two, trying desperately to find a valid excuse for why they should not go to that place. But she thinks that ‘Thea might see me and tell Oliver.’ or ‘What if Oliver is watching the security footage?’ might not be the best of excuses in front of Ray.

And so she finds herself walking through the less familiar front doors of Verdant, rather than entering through the secret door around the back that is her usual way in. The bouncers on the front still recognise her, and they get in without having to queue up, much to the disgust of the long line of people still waiting for a chance to enter.

Barry and Ray waste no time in heading to the bar, where a new bartender is already hard at work in the role that used to be filled by Roy. Ray gets he and Felicity some more drinks, and hands one to his girlfriend happily. Another wave of remorse for how she has been treating him lately fills her. The date night the other night had been mostly a pity date night, and Felicity had almost managed to pluck up the courage to break things off with him, but he had been so thrilled at her finally taking some time off from Arrow work after the crazy few weeks that she had worked through that she had not been able to. He is just like an excited puppy, and he throws himself into relationships with his whole heart. Felicity cannot be like that, she never has but she sometimes wonders where she would be in life if she were more like Ray. If she could love him if she were more open to love.

And here in Verdant he is once again overjoyed at the chance to go out with her and have some fun but she cannot even fully enjoy it. Her mind is split between trying to live in the moment whilst also keeping an eye on her companions whilst also feeling bad for not loving Ray whilst also feeling bad for loving Oliver whilst also wanting to be with Oliver instead whilst also keeping an eye out for any sign of a Queen in their club. She just smiles weakly back at him, taking the drink. He is too drunk to notice how the smile does not reach her eyes.

*************************

Barry is the one to suggest dancing, and this time Felicity is the one agreeing. Dancing means no talking, just moving. It means giving her a chance to think without her being less present in the evening, and it will make Ray happy. And she will always want Ray to be happy. He really is just a great guy, if a little intense at times.

The three of them dance together for a while, and for the first time all evening, Felicity finds herself actually fully enjoying her night. The music drowns out her conflicted thoughts, and she just lets herself go with two men she does genuinely care a lot about, even if not in the way that one of them wants her to. She gets so into the music and the movement that she loses herself to it, and before she knows it she has separated from the group and is lost in the throng of moving bodies.

For a moment, she considers looking for the others, but then decides against it. She is sure that she will bump into them at some point and if she does not, she can hack the security footage and find them when she is good and ready.

Without realising it, Felicity’s dancing has her slowly migrating towards the edge of the dance floor. Specifically, to the side where the entrance to the Foundry lies. Perhaps it is some subconscious draw that pulls her there, but regardless of why she travels in that direction, by the time that she notices what is happening it is too late.

She turns in her dance, moving with the beat of her music, but as she does, she is halted in her progress, face slamming into an absurdly hard mass. A hard, tall, clothed mass that is in entirely the wrong place and is entirely the wrong shape to be a wall. It does happen to be exactly the right shape to be an Oliver though. She would recognise that chest anywhere.

Eyes wide, she slowly drags them from the firm expanse of his insanely large pectorals, up along his neck, past a very clenched jaw and then finally, she meets his hard, crystalline eyes.

“Oliver!” she squeaks.

“Felicity.” He rumbles, and she becomes aware of his hands on her hips, steadying her from her run in with his chest.

“Uh…” her mind is blank for the second time in the night, and she just stands motionless in his arms for far too long.

“Are you here with Barry and Palmer?” Oliver grits out.

“Uh… yes.”

“Well, where are they then?” he is angry – is he mad at her? “Why would they let you go wandering off on your own, anything could happen.”

That jolts some awareness back into her, “What’s that supposed to mean?” she hisses, eyes narrowed in contrast to how wide they had been a moment ago.

He sighs, “I know you can take care of yourself, Felicity.” Whatever shortcomings Oliver Queen may have, he definitely knows her well, “Probably better than Palmer could. But even you have to admit that a group of three people – two of whom are over six foot tall and male – are far less likely to get attacked than a single, short woman on her own. It’s not a matter of who can protect themselves best, it’s a matter of how vulnerable you _look_.”

Felicity huffs, “Whatever, Oliver.”

“Felicity.” His voice is softer, almost pleading, “I’m just trying to look out for you.”

“No!” she yells, “You have no right to follow me around judging how I spend my nights off! If I’d wanted to go out all night entirely on my own, no Barry, no Ray, no _you_ , then that would have been okay because _it is my choice_!” She punctuates the final four words with prods to his chest that barely even move him. Their argument is drawing attention from the people around them, and Felicity can see that she is two seconds away from somebody recognising Oliver and calling the police and then they will have a real disaster on their hands.

Grabbing the sleeve of Oliver’s shirt, she tugs him along behind her as she retreats into the club, heading for the Foundry. Oliver lets her, compliantly following along but she can practically feel the tension radiating from him. She keys in the code: 02-18-10, Oliver’s choice, and storms down the steps. Down there it is still a mess, the glass cases shattered across the floor, her precious babies smashed in and arrows littered everywhere, but she ignores all of that in favour of rounding on him.

“What are you even doing her, anyway?” she questions, “You have no reason to be here. You should be at John’s or Palmer Tech or literally anywhere else in a place that is not owned by you and you are unlikely to be recognised!”

“This is still Thea’s and my club.” He protests.

“Exactly!” she throws her hands into the air in exasperation, “When did you get here?”

“What does that matter?”

“When did you get here, Oliver?” she demands, angry.

“About half an hour ago.” He admits.

“And why did you come?”

Oliver says nothing.

“I knew it!” she exclaims, livid, “You’re following me! What gives you the right, Oliver? Since when do you think that you can come following me around when I’m trying to enjoy my private life?”

“Since you started endangering yourself during your private life by wandering off, drunk, on your own when there’s a known assassin on the loose who’s after me and everybody I lo- care about!” he explodes.

“Oh, come off it! You got here half an hour ago. I wasn’t even dancing then, I’d barely even arrived myself. You found out that I was here and then you came rushing over because you just can’t handle the fact that you’re not the only thing in my life anymore!”

“I’m barely even in your life anymore!” Oliver yells, right in her face. And as much as she knows that it is the heat of the argument that has then screaming at one another, she can also see the genuine hurt behind his fury. She can see that he is terrified of losing her. Unfortunately for him, she is far too angry, and she feels far too guilty to think rationally.

“What do you even mean by that? Just because I’m not hanging off your every word like I did two years ago-”

“It’s not that!” he is panting, furious, “Everything is falling apart and you’re not even there. I can’t go out and fight criminals without someone running comms and coordinating and you’re the person who’s supposed to do that so if you don’t show up, there’s very little I can actually do other than follow around the people that I love to make sure that they’re safe!”

She ignores his slip, too mad to focus on that, “What are you talking about? I spend my _entire life_ behind those computers for you! I take one little night off and you can’t even let me have that because you have to insert yourself into every aspect of my life!” she honestly wants to hit something. Nobody has ever made her as angry as this man.

“It’s not just one night though, is it?” he hisses, “You can’t come in – you have a date with Ray.” He sneers, “You can’t come in – you and Ray and Barry are busy on your special little project. You can’t come in – you’re going out with your two favourite people ever, Barry and Ray.”

“So that’s what this is about? You’re _jealous_?” she takes a step back, exhausted with the entire conversation, “What? Because Barry and Ray get along? Because I have a friend who isn’t John? Because I have a boyfriend who _isn’t you_?” she sees him flinch at the reminder.

“No.” his voice has gone quiet, something far more serious and deadly with Oliver than yelling could ever be and for the first time, Felicity actually takes him seriously, “You… you know that all I want is for you to be happy.”

He seems so sincere, but still, “You always say that but then you go and do stuff like this. I was happy, Oliver. I was having a wonderful night and then you came and ruined it. Because you do want me to be happy – but you want that happiness to be _with you_.”

“Of course I do.” Felicity starts, she has never heard him admit to that before, “I… I… you _know_ how I feel about you, Felicity. You know what you are to me. Of course I want you to find your happiness with me. But it’s like you just said, I ruin your happiness.” He is utterly forlorn, “I ruin everything. Just like I ruined us in October and then again after I came home.”

Felicity does not know what to say. She wants to reassure him, to tell him that he did not ruin everything but that would be a lie. At the time, it was on him. _He_ was the one who decided that he could not have a loving relationship as well as his life as a vigilante. _He_ was the one who chose to be the Arrow rather than to be with her. _He_ was the one who told her he loved her and then ran away to die before she could respond. _He_ was the one who came back from months of being believed dead, allied to the man who had used his sister to murder his ex-girlfriend. _He_ was the one who could never bend or change to accommodate her in his life, even after she centred her entire life around him and his mission.

But she cannot blame him for choosing being the Arrow, even if she can blame him for thinking that he could not have both. She cannot blame him for telling her he loved her back then, because if he had truly died, at least she would have had more than a ‘Don’t ask me to say that I don’t love you’ and an ‘I love you’ that was a ruse. But she can blame him for not waiting for her to say it back. She cannot blame him for doing whatever it takes to keep everybody safe, even when what needs doing is unpleasant but she can blame him for springing it on them so quickly. Mere minutes after they got him back. And she knows that if he could just open his mind a little wider than his mission, he would give her the world. He already wants to. And she cannot blame him for the fact that she still very much loves him, and not the man she is dating even if she can blame him for driving her to date somebody else in the first place.

She knows that they have both made mistakes. She knows that perhaps choosing to take a trip to Central City mere days after Roy’s arrest, and then spending half her time since coming home going on dates with Ray and doing things with he and Barry and going out with them was not the best idea. Not when Oliver needs her more than he ever has before beyond her hacking abilities and what her brain can do. Not when she is one of the only things that Oliver has left, even if not in the capacity that both of them may want, and he needed her with him. As a friend, if nothing else.

But she cannot say any of that because she does have Ray. She is somebody’s girlfriend and that person is not Oliver. She cannot tell him that she has already forgiven him for everything and that she dreams of him every night because several of those dreams have been dreamt whilst she was in bed with somebody else. Somebody who loves her, even though she does not love him back. And she is a lot of things but she will never be a cheat. She could never do that to Ray or to herself or even to Oliver, who would beat himself up over it if he were to be the one she cheated with.

“You didn’t ruin everything, Oliver.” She finds herself saying, “You didn’t ruin everything. I’ll _always_ be here for you. I’ll always be your friend.” The word tastes like ash on her tongue, and if Oliver’s wince is any indication, he likes it no better, “If you need me to be on comms, I will be, for as long as you want. I’m sorry I’ve been so distracted lately, I should have been a better f-friend.” She trips over the word the second time, “But you can’t just follow me around whenever I’m not around. It’s too dangerous for you and it’s not fair to me.”

Oliver deflates, “I know.” He whispers, “And I’m sorry. And you have nothing to apologise for, I was just being difficult. Because it’s _you_.” He sounds almost pained, “It’s you and I’m… I’m powerless with you. I can’t help myself. I need to know that you’re safe. Especially with Ra’s and everything else.”

“I know.” She whispers back and then, almost of their own accord, her arms are winding around Oliver’s neck so that she can hold herself to him, resting her head on his chest. His arms wrap around her waist, his entire being slumping into her embrace. Relief is palpable, both of them have needed this for such a long time. Just to lean on one another, to support each other through the craziness that is their lives. Oliver is curved to be able to rest his head on her shoulder, face turned into her neck and Felicity ignores the fact that he is inhaling her scent like he needs it to survive.

She resolves, right there and then, to finally get around to breaking up with Ray. She may not be physically cheating on him, but it is not fair to him to hold on when her heart so clearly belongs to the man in her arms and he needs to be free to find his own happiness. Even if she cannot be with Oliver, even if this is all that they will ever have, she knows that Ray deserves better and that she and Oliver deserve the chance to see if they ever could become more, without other people in the way. She needs to have the chance to choose, or at least the time to get over him. She never really gave herself that.

“Felicity?” Comes a voice from behind the door at the top of the stairs, “Felicity, are you down there?” she hears giggles too, and recognises that it is Barry and Ray.

“Yeah!” she calls up, “One second, I was just looking for something that I’d left here, thought I might as well take the opportunity, you know? I’ll be up in a minute!”

Oliver begins to untangle himself from her, “I’d better get back.” She says, lamenting the fact.

“Okay.” He replies, equally disheartened that their moment has been cut short.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” she checks the time, “Or later today, I guess.”

“Yeah.” He lets her go, watching her walk away, “Felicity?”

She looks back, hearing everything that he is trying to say in those four syllables, “I know.” She gives him a small smile, and then makes her way back upstairs, knowing that she has a lot to think about and a lot more to do.

Unfortunately, that all has to wait when a meta comes to town the next day and throws yet another wrench into her life.

**Author's Note:**

> It's okay they bang like a week later.
> 
> I'm on twitter [@MagusLibera](https://twitter.com/MagusLibera).


End file.
